Tonight I was inspired to write a haiku. I’ve been enjoying the beautiful gift that is this weather this past few days, and in doing so I think I’ve unlocked a new potential for new forms of creativity. I’ve attempted to capture those familiar associations we all have of the summer. Let me know what you think.
“To the insect that
Found sustenance in my blood:
I hope you are dead.”
Now bear with me, I’m new to this poetry business. But I think I may be onto something here.
Happy Summertime.
B
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Quick note to say that the Wish magazine that I did a little work for is well and truly launched. If you’re into all that fashion stuff (and fancy seeing some of my work, alongside many others, in a lovely glossy print) hit up the shop here and grab yourself a copy.
Here’s a picture of the finished article. The front illustration isn’t mine but gives you a great insight into the World of Wish. Mine are hidden among the pages. Along with a lot of pink.
To read all about the trials and tribulations the girls went through in the creation of this beauty, see their blogs here and here.
B
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In light of the exciting developments that have been taking place outside of the university environment (things like Comiket, my review and MY NEW SHOP WHICH I JUST DON’T THINK I’VE GONE ON ABOUT ENOUGH), I’ve done an excellent job at neglecting the work I’ve been doing within the big, ol’, yellow institution.
This post will be an attempt to correct these wrong-doing by bringing you a little snippet of creativity from the life of University.
You know, that place I spend 80% of my time. The reason I live here. That one.
Doesn’t even involve photocopiers.
So, we’ve been working on two, comparatively short projects that, although required separate outcomes, held a common theme and were (presumably) designed to feed off of each other to an extent. In short, we started with an object that we were then to expand on and extend into an environment of our chosing. (There were many more restrictions than that, but we won’t get into that just now.)
Naturally, me being me, I chose a COMPLETELY terrifying wooden mask of a human face and, naturally, me being me, decided to create a completely terrifying wooden creature to wear it.
In a nutshell. Give or take a bit of research.
Our outcomes were to be a sequential narrative, for which we had to convey this sense of movement in 9 panels (something I think my all night comic-making-athon may have put me in good stead for), and a soundless animation of 15 seconds or more. Simples.
It’s been, for the most part, good fun. The Animation comes first in the saga of the weird Tree Creature. It’s jerky, it’s rushed, it’s wibbly and just generally a bit crap and so, totally not worth the amount of time sunk into it’s creation. But the more I watch those meager little 24 seconds, the more I love it. Like a really ugly kitten. Or a child who just can’t get his head around potty training.It’s my first ever start stop animation and so I feel I’m entitled to a bit of forgiving in terms of the craft. It’s made by my own fair hands and therefore, by default, I’ll love it always. If only as a milestone in my creative journey.
And even if it does leave a little poo on the proverbial carpet every time I watch it.
My static image sequence, while still rushed and far from perfect, had the advantage of being a practice I was familiar with. In an attempt to communicate this driving theme of the mask’s wooden texture, I made the (pretty foolish to be honest) decision to linocut my sequence in three colours which, due to the restrictions of the process and size of my lino, added a simple bleakness to the images and lost a lot of potential detail. As I’ve said, just a little too often about my work before, they’re not the greatest feat of printmaking known to man, but time played a restricting factor that forced the simplification of imagery down to the point to see here.
While I loathe to consider them a direct sequel to the animation (due to my own personal gripes regarding the film industry), they could be considered to continue the narrative previously explored, and therefore should really be seen second. You know, seeing as they were offered as a joint brief and all.
I might consider them a spin-off. Maybe.
Originally I’d planned to bind them into a concertina book, sandwiched between a hard front and back cover. I have two prints of each image, so it’s something I could still well do, but actually, in terms of the movement between image to image as a sequence, the simple grid of 9 works rather well. They break up well into columns of 3 and I think that adds a nice pace to the movement that could easily be lost in the transition into a bound document. There’s a certain stillness to the images that I’d worry would be compromised to an extent if they were to be viewed in one, continuous line. As much as I love books and book binding.
And I do.
So there’s a little taste of what a Bath Spa student has to offer. Wooden Creeps and wibbly frames. Top-Notch talent only in that school doncha know.
Bugger, I was hoping to keep this post short so my flatmate doesn’t laugh at the cyber-typing-diarohea from which I suffer, but I seem to have had another attack.
Sorry about that fellas.
Over and Out.
B
Do you know what you should do today?
I think you should go and spend all your money on the internet.
“But that’s what I do every week!” I hear you cry.
Well yes, the internet is one big beautiful black hole in the wallet. But Now it’s even more excellenter-er!
Now you can give ME your money! And then, I’ll send you a present. What do you say?
Visit my brand-spankin’-new-totally-awesome online shop and make your life better. (Fact.)
Also, I’ve been in the print rooms again. Be warned. Pictures and whatnot coming soon.
B
x
Okay so, at time of writing it’s 12:38 on Wednesday.
I’ve now been up since 8.30am Tuesday morning and I’m starting to feel the effects.
Basically, it’s all my tutors fault. Being the good student I am, I was sifting through the pages of university related crap that tend to accumulate in my inbox, when I found something of interest hiding in between the incessant barrage of SU updates (the beauty of this being that we don’t even have an SU office at my campus.)
It was the details for this competition. The prize is a bit tasty (because who doesn’t like holidays and comics?) but that’s not really why I wanted to enter. It sounds like a cop-out, but genuinely the winning wasn’t what I wanted out of it. I just really liked the idea of being set a comic book brief to respond to, that wasn’t simply self-initiated fun times. Plus second and third prize are free tickets to the festival, and I reckon any comics festival seems like a good thing to get involved in, given the success of the last one.
So here’s the catch. The email was sent yesterday. The deadline is tomorrow. And it’s mail only entry. So, I have spent the past…well god knows how many hours scripting, illustrating, photoshopping and indesigning a two page comic that I have now, I’m delighted to say, popped in the post.
So long as it arrives by tomorrow, the website says they’ll exhibit all of the entrants (so either they have a hench exhibition space, or they’re not expecting a whole lot of entries…) so regardless of if they like it or not, it won’t have been wasted. And yeah, okay so I have now missed a lecture and a seminar as a result, and won’t be able to spend the afternoon in the print rooms as planned due to an excessive amount of sleeping that needs to be done, BUT, while it may be a thumbs down on the school front, I reckon I deserve a fricking gold star for dedication to the craft! Or one for stupidity, haven’t decided which yet.
Here’s the original artwork for it, created by my own fair hands at a horrible time in the morning.
It’s a bit of a mental one, but that is what you get from trying to script a whole project in ten hours. It’s actually not my original idea, I jumped ship halfway through so this one didn’t really get started until about 9pm.
I stuck with a standard layout: double page spread. Yeah okay, I’m sure I could have really explored the brief and done something clever with the two pages, but when time’s against you, I like to focus more on the artwork and text than faffing about with potential novelties, as nice as they can be.
And of course, it goes without saying that there’s A LOT wrong with it. For a start due to my excessive tiredness at time of conception, it’s a bit too batshit mad to really be as directly communicative as I’d usually like (and the text doesn’t actually help much with that either, funnily enough.)
It’s a shame in a way. I think had I had more time to perfect it all, it could have been quite nice. The text needs an overhaul (both the script and I’m not overly happy with the font or placing of it in the final copy) and there’s a lot of work needed on the arrangement of cells. But hey, for a 10 hour comic I guess it could be worse.
Great practice as well. I’d like to get into the habit of knocking out short work on a regular basis, and while this wasn’t really finished to a standard I’d usually expect it to be at, I think i’s acceptable given the MAJOR handicap I was working with.
NOT that I really want to turn this all nighter business into a regular occurence. But it has been quite fun.
Fingers crossed eh?
Perhaps I’ll turn it into a mini zine or something. Thanks to the time, effort and cunning knowledge of a very Special person named Matt, the bagleybooks store is well underway, so all books and zines will soon be available over the magic of the web.
Needless to say, everything I am now producing, I’m seeing dollar signs all over, and this is absolutely no exception.
Keep an eye on the website for more information!
Okay, I’m pretty definite it’s bedtime now. Over and OUT.
B
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Rebecca Bagley Illustration